Edison Arias Velasquez and his Westbury teammates knew what was at stake on Sunday.
The Green Dragons — who have never reached a Nassau final in boys soccer in their program’s history — watched as their three-goal lead was quickly cut to one by a tough Oceanside team early in the second half.
Then, Velasquez heard a message from coach Chris Valentini near the sideline.
“Coach told us to play with intensity and effort,” Velasquez said, “and that’s what we did.”
Not to mention talent, which the senior forward certainly has.
Velasquez scored in the 46th minute and later in the 78th minute as No. 3 Westbury hung on for a thrilling 4-2 win against No. 2 Oceanside in a Nassau Class AA semifinal at Mitchel Athletic Complex.
Westbury (11-4-1) meets No. 5 Uniondale (8-3-6) in the AA final at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Mitchel.
“It means a lot for us to go to the finals — especially for these kids — they live and breathe soccer,” Valentini said. “They’ve won at every level except for here [high school].”
Westbury seemed to put a stranglehold on the game after Velasquez’s first goal gave the Green Dragons a 3-0 lead with 33:04 remaining in the second half.
Jeffrey Moran and Edwin Escobar each added a goal and an assist, and Larsen Garcia had an assist as well for Westbury.
But Oceanside (10-2-4) answered with two goals just 26 seconds apart — at the 31:38 mark by David Acker and at 31:12 from Ethan Recchia — and all of the sudden it was 3-2.
“It flipped quickly,” Valentini said. “A little bit of the effort goes away when you think you’ve got a big cushion.”
Some Green Dragons players thought back to Sept. 21, when Westbury coughed up a 2-0 lead and lost 4-2 at Oceanside.
“I got nervous, but everybody gets nervous,” Velasquez said. “We just had to stand our ground.”
They did that, while also making something happen. Escobar, a sophomore, sent a lovely through ball to Velasquez who scored his 12th goal of the season with 1:39 left to punch Westbury’s ticket to the final.
“We scored two quick goals and took the game back,” Oceanside coach Patrick Turk said, “but we just couldn’t execute on a couple of those final chances which breaks our hearts.”
Meanwhile, Westbury could be 80 minutes away from making program history.
“High school soccer is the real thing,” Valentini said. “It never goes away in New York state.
“I don’t know who won the last Dixie Cup match, but you always know who won the counties and the states. You always remember those times. Yeah, this is a huge moment for us.”